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Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Top 10 Reasons We Don't Get to Certain Books

Beth Carswell has a great article "Remaining Unread: The Top Ten Reasons We Don’t Get to Certain Books" on AbeBooks.com. I don't get to a lot of books, but I usually think it's a time thing as in Too Many Book, Too Little Time, but I think Beth has a big point here. There are several books.. and mysteries... that I just don't get to. I'll save my list for now, but I'd love to hear from you on which books you haven't gotten to and why!

8 comments:

It is interesting, isn't it? My shelves, probably like everyone else's, are groaning. I did a "holiday cull" over xmas and found books that had been there since at least 2004, and nobly took them down to the charity shop. I don't really understand why one accumulates so many unread books, but it is certainly true in my case that most of them seem to be books that I have been sent on spec by publishers, authors, etc, or which I have weakly accepted when offered them, rather than those which I have actively chosen to read myself.

I can identify with almost all of the suggestions in that article...I still don't know why I have a copy of THE LOVELY BONES because I know it is not my cup of tea at all and would make me vomit if I read it...but all the hype made me acquire a copy (at least I didn't pay for it). As for bargain bins...they say that a definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results yet I always check the bargain bins and when I buy something it is invariably junk. Sigh.

I have one extra reason which wasn't mentioned - ever since I joined the bookmooch bookswapping webiste I've ended up with several dozen books I never really wanted. It always seems to be the way that when someone has a book I want they also have a stipulation that you have to mooch at least two books from them to make postage economical so I end up mooching some other piece of dreck just so I can get the one I want.

Wonderful reasons and here are a few more:When I bought the book many years ago, the print was larger.I know I have this book but just can't find it and don't want to buy another one yet...I think I read it but I am not sure..Bill Gottfried

Length deters me. With fiction, I worry I'll want to read with a red pen, cutting all the extraneous stuff. Fortunately, the older I get, the cheaper I get about buying books I really don't think I'll like. Might try the library where I'm forced to read within a time frame. However, I still think my TBR pile holds up the house. Maybe that's why I don't get to it...